NASA's Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research Jaiwon Shin and National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) of The Netherlands General Director Michel Peters signed two cooperative agreements in the field of air traffic management in Amsterdam Thursday.

"NASA and NLR share a mutual interest in optimizing airport surface traffic," Shin said. "The collaborative research emanating from these two agreements will help our airports avoid surface conflicts, reduce delays, eliminate congestion and improve efficiency benefiting all airline passengers."

One agreement relates to cooperative research in reducing air traffic congestion in the terminal area. The other agreement outlines cooperation in predicting conflicts to increase safety and airport surface traffic to reduce delays thereby saving fuel while reducing noise and emissions.

These agreements will lead to a mutual beneficial collaboration in research. Because both NASA and NLR independently have developed tools for efficient terminal operations, the collaboration will validate these tools and concepts through simulations and operational trials with airlines, airports and air navigation service providers.

According to Peters, NASA and NLR already are working together in several areas, such as aircraft noise modeling and simulation.

"We recognize the need for international cooperation to achieve innovations for aviation, ensuring global interoperability," Peters said. "Our extended cooperation is a logical step forward to mature new technologies for applications in air traffic management."